


rats marching to the grave

by rakugaki (tieria)



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mastermind Saihara Shuuichi, POV Multiple, the saiou is ambiguous but present so i tagged it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-01-21 20:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12465204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/rakugaki
Summary: The mastermind has an accomplice.[Major ndrv3 spoilers]





	rats marching to the grave

**Author's Note:**

> though it's an au, there are spoilers all the way until the endgame.
> 
> I'm using the mastermind saihara tag but it's more like accomplice saihara

Someone is planning his death.

Well, sure they are! The game would turn awfully boring if they let it end like this, hijacked by a fake mastermind and left to stagnate indefinitely while Ouma gathers up the pieces for his next move.

But who, who- and that’s the question he’s been chasing circles around the entire time, hasn’t he? Running himself into brick wall after brick wall- _boring_.

Iruma had been so wonderfully transparent when she’d snapped. It had given him the every opportunity that he needed to throw his plan into the final stage and attack the mastermind directly.

(Not that he’d been happy about it.)

He just hadn’t had another choice, see, than but to play right into the mastermind’s hands. It wasn’t like he could touch Iruma’s, after all.

_Ah_ , there he goes getting all melancholy about things he can’t change again- that’s not something the mastermind would do. ‘Course, the mastermind would have planned for everything. There’s no misfortune that they can’t rectify... Except maybe the plan that Ouma’s been brewing, buuuut he’d rather not resort to that. The reasons are pretty obvious, after all.

So! He’d rather not.

(But he’d beat the mastermind if he did.)

So long as Saihara catches on to his plan, of course. But Saihara is… Well. Saihara’s inconsistent on the best of days- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse- but what never changes is the way Ouma can fluster him with a couple well-chosen words, caught on the verge of truth and lie.

But nope, not the time for that! More important things to think about. Mastermind things. Ouma paces the hangar floor, Exisal to press and back. He misses his whiteboard and his evidence collection, even if it can’t tell him a single thing he doesn’t already know.

Not that he has the chance to go get it. That would only give his would-be murderer the _opportunity_ , and that’s not the kind of move he wants the mastermind to make, right now. The game is in his control, following his script, tracing down _his_ courses of action. He’s going to force the mastermind’s hand.

And if he end up having to die to win the game, then so be it. He’d resolved himself to that possibility when he began pushing towards this scenario. It’s just the tiny, little, virtually insignificant fact that _certain people_ in this group are prone to rash decisions that’s making everything so very difficult. He’d just rather not be murdered on someone else’s terms. Because that’s messy. In multiple ways!  

The hangar door opens. Ouma whirls towards it and plasters a grin on his face. The remaining four Exisals should all be watching Monokuma, which means whoever’s strolling in like Ouma’s invited them-

“Saihara-chan?”

Is what he says, but… no, nope, can’t be.

That’s not Saihara. The Saihara that Ouma knows stands like a vigilant shadow at the sides of others, believing all too easily in the lies that propel this killing game forwards. And that… had been a disappointment, in the end. Ouma doesn’t want to dwell too long on why. Because this Saihara...

This Saihara walks up to him with a skulk his straight-backed stride can’t quite mask. His expression isn’t right. Ouma’s seen Saihara wear a lot of emotions quite plainly across his face over the span of this killing game- horror, sadness, confusion, reluctance, surprise- even managed to put quite a few there himself.

And _oh_ , Ouma thinks, and throws his arms nonchalant to lock his fingers behind his head. _That’s a new one, Saihara-chan._

He knows what this Saihara is feeling.

_Anticipation._

Saihara’s expression now would look much more at home on Ouma’s own face. He thinks he’s worn the exact same gross smile, actually! Black and white, a matched set. Ouma laughs to himself. Saihara still doesn’t say a word.

Ouma shuffles around a few pieces in his head and lets his expression go a little dark, because the silence has stretched out _just_ a little too long to be natural. Saihara’s not exactly prone to idle chatter even on his most talkative of days, but he’s a good kid. Responds properly when called, even when Ouma’s most consistent response is a cheerful- _“Absolutely nothing!”_ or unrefusable demand for Saihara to follow him around on some mission the both of them know is pointless.

Ouma doesn’t quite know what he is- but he’s not a kid thrown into a killing game.

But he won’t get any more information if he doesn’t get Saihara to talk. So he does what he does best- he lies.

“Should you really be walking up to the mastermind in his own lair? That’s dangerous, Saihara-chan. I might end up killing you for real this time.” He punctuates this with a wave of his hand, showing off the bandage still wrapped around his finger. He doubts Saihara ever believed that particular declaration even from the beginning, but now that he’d good as murdered Iruma and Gonta, that little lie of his might hold a little more weight.

Who knows! He’s about as good as reading Saihara as Saihara is at reading him- that is to say, they can spend hours nudging each other in one direction only to realize that all they had to do to get the other to give was to push the other way.

Saihara laughs at him. And see, that’s funny! Not what he’d expected at all. Ouma smiles at him with no humor. It’s funny, see, because Ouma’s been wondering a while now what he could do to get Saihara to laugh. At him, with him, whatever would have been fine. Saihara’s never laughed. Ouma always got the vague impression that if he did, it would be kind of cute.

No, Ouma should probably stop lying now.

Saihara doesn’t laugh, he scoffs.

It’s not cute at all.

Finally, Saihara says, “I’m closer to the mastermind than you’ll ever get.”

Lying to a liar, how unforgivably bold! Ouma grins, too wide. “That was a bad joke, Saihara-chan. Leave those to me from now on, okay?”

Saihara isn’t fazed. Ouma doesn’t dare let that grin drop from his face, doesn’t dare let that perpetually loose posture of his stiffen up. The old Saihara couldn’t tell that he’d nicked his finger on purpose and got overly flustered when he made jokes a little too honest about stealing Saihara’s heart.

This Saihara looks like he knows more about Ouma than Ouma knows about himself; which, to be fair, isn’t very much in the first place. How can he qualify for the title of _supreme leader_ if he only leads ten people? How can he be a Remnant of Despair if Amami’s the one who’s played a killing game before? Really, it’s such a paper-thin lie; he’s surprised no one has the sense to see right through it. ‘Course, they don’t know that last bit, yet. That one’s on him, mostly.

“But it’s the truth.” Refutation after refutation- seems like this Saihara still remembers how to do that, at least.

Ouma laughs.

(Truth, lie- it’s not funny at all.)

“Geez, Saihara-chan! You’re not listening at all. Aren’t you supposed to be better at this?”

The first time- that had been a novelty, realizing that Saihara had lied his way through every single trial- to the truth, but still with the lies he claimed to resent so much when they fell from Ouma’s lips. Almost like Saihara was finally ready to play him at his own game. Like maybe he’d understood more than he’d let on, this entire time. But that hadn’t been true at all, had it?

“Hey, Ouma-kun,” this Saihara says, “Let’s play a game.”

He can’t refuse. He’s already participant in this killing game. Of his own will, even! The two people dead because of his orchestrations can attest to that. Or they could, rather, but Ouma doesn’t think anyone is very eager to hold a seance, anymore.

“Ohh! Interesting! But it better be as much fun as a killing game, or else I’m gonna get bored.” _Of you_ goes unspoken. Saihara totally gets it, though! Ouma can tell, because his expression does something funny when he says ‘ _killing game’_. The old Saihara’s expression used to do the exact same thing, but in the total opposite direction.

Now the game has changed. The pieces rebel and declare themselves a player. Saihara’s picture on his mental whiteboard goes far to the left.

Saihara takes out a knife and a needle with a terrifying smile. Ouma returns it tenfold. He’s not going to like this game. “Ohhh, bold choice, Saihara-chan! And here I thought you were going to pick something _dull_.”

(No, he doesn’t like this game at all.)

 

He doesn’t forfeit, this time.

 

...

 

He doesn’t win, either.

 

(So the mastermind had planned for this, too.)

He’d resolved himself.

That doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to live. Well. Too late for that one.

“You’re… not… the master… mind…” he forces out through his closing throat. His knees are numb, in a moment they’ll give out. How undignified. But at least it’s not messy. Not _yet_.

Saihara doesn’t let him fall, instead scooping Ouma up in his arms while Ouma can’t do a thing to resist. How kind.

How humiliating.

“Nope,” Saihara says, and lays him down on the slab below the press. Ouma can’t feel much, anymore. He can almost convince himself that the touch is gentle. Only almost, though! He’s pretty sure that this Saihara’s never cared to be _gentle_ with a single thing in his life.

Because, see...

He knows exactly what this Saihara is. This Saihara is a boy on the verge of everything he’s ever wanted.

(The press falls. He _gets_ it.)

* * *

“Ah, well. There hasn’t been a detective character since season forty-nine, and-”

Tsumugi interrupts him; repetition isn’t the problem here. Tsumugi can rattle off the top of her head the number of detectives (twenty-four), the subset of those who’d taken up the role of protagonist (eleven), and how many of them had so naively lead their fellow contestants like lambs to the incorrect answer (four, and _oh_ , hadn’t that been rather bloody every time).

It’s an archetype, and despite the fact it’s her job, she struggles to list off any of their names past Kirigiri. Such blind paragons of hope…

It isn’t as if she doesn’t understand the root of the appeal. That girl- the one she’ll call _Harukawa_ \- will grow to be the same. Though in a rather more interesting manner, if she doesn’t say so herself.

Boring, boring- if this is to be her season, then she wants something with _appeal_. “And how would you be unique? For instance, certain traits or habits you had in mind…”

On stage, the boy has the gall to smile at her. She hates how knowing it is. It’s perfect. “Well,” he says, “The detective’s never committed murder.”

_Orchestrated,_ Tsumugi thinks, on one notable occasion during an otherwise lackluster season thirty-two. But those aren’t the words he says. There’s no question that he’s nervous, but every word so far has been carefully chosen, picked with ruthless precision so as to maximize his chances of being selected.

Tsumugi smiles, business pleasant. It is her default expression, during these meetings. She’s a bit disturbed to find that it had fallen off her face in the first place. “You sound as if you have this all planned out.”

“Of course, any kind of character is fine, as long as I get to participate. Just… if I could, that’s the kind of character I’d want. And, well, I’ve been thinking up punishments, and-”

This is the point where Tsumugi usually cuts applicants off. If they’ve made it this far in the audition process, it’s because of the potential they have, not who they are, and _certainly_ not who they think they should be.

But his words tumble out one after the other, rough and unsuited towards the one that comes next (and certainly, Tsumugi thinks, his talent won’t be _poetry_ ), painting out a storyline intoxicating and seeped in bloody red.

(Or rather, Tsumugi notes down absently, in the bright post-production pink of her pen.)

The story that she’s planning, a story that breaks all of its own rules- oh, she can see the controversy now. She clicks her pen, taps it twice against her clipboard, precise. And there will be controversy, there’s no doubt about that- but will it make or break the game, that’s the question.

If the girl she’ll call _Harukawa_ will fall for the boy she’ll call _Momota_ and the girl she’ll call _Akamatsu_ will preach the antithesis of the killing game only to set it into motion with her own two hands-

She considers the boy before her.

She thinks of her carefully constructed cosplays, painstakingly sewn after the end of each season as applicants for the next begin flooding in to the lower level administration. She thinks of that detective from season thirty-two, and of the brilliance of the fallout. She thinks of her Enoshima Junko cosplay, sitting in its place of honor on the mannequin beside her dressing table.

She thinks something dangerous. What she says aloud is- “We at Team Danganronpa will take your ideas into consideration. We’ll contact you with the results of the final auditions within a week. If you don’t receive a phone call or email, please contact our support staff though one of the methods listed on our website.”

“Thank you,” the boy says, and starts to shuffle off the stage. From beneath the brim of his hat the boy catches her eye as he saunters off to let the next hopeful take his place. And oh, she knows that look. She sees it every morning in the mirror.

Tsumugi flips the page on her clipboard, replacing pink words with fresh, blue-lined white. She doesn’t pay any attention to the motion; her eyes are still firmly on the two applicants. The boy passes another, trading places on the stage; the differences in their manner couldn’t be more readily apparent. Even before hearing a word, she begins to wonder how she could play the two off each other. _Interactions,_ she’s decided, will be the key this season. Even if an individual character’s presentation ends up weaker than anticipated, the strength of their relationships will carry them through. After all, she thinks, she doesn’t intend on having very many survivors.

The new boy comes on stage, stuttering his way through everything but his own name. He immediately inspires a rather sympathetic kind of pity, the kind that would have the rest of her created cast flocking around to protect him.

There are certain charms of a person that even rewritten personalities can’t erase completely, traits written into a person’s very flesh and blood, sunk deep into their bones. Someone more poetic would say that it’s the composition of their very soul. As it is, Tsumugi’s written too many characters to feel so prettily about it.

On stage, the boy seems to find some momentum. Tsumugi takes a few notes, and wonders how much she can play around with his personality before it falls apart entirely. In any other season, she would have jotted down _protagonist?_ down next to his name in looping, undecided curls- but this is _her_ season, and she can’t settle for such an obvious rallying point.

So if the girl she’ll call _Yumeno_ will scrounge up reason to live from the depths of a killing game and last season’s symbol called _Amami_ won’t live to see the end of the game he so desired, leaving the robot called _Keebo_ to become the hope that her audience so desperately longs for…

On stage, the boy rallies himself for his final appeal. “So it would, um… Even if things end badly…. It would be nice if I didn’t give up hope.”

Tsumugi smiles, and feels a flash of terrible inspiration. She draws a wide circle around his information, and starts to think of what name she’ll give him as she recites the usual end-of-audition monologue.

He skitters off, obviously thinking he’d been rejected- and that’s fine. Let it be a surprise when the call eventually comes. Which reminds her- she flips the page back by one, doodles a little phone next to the name she’s just decided on, a lovely little play on words.

She’ll have to make a few of the acceptance calls personally, this time around.

(Hasn’t she always wanted her turn at Enoshima Junko’s stage?)

* * *

“You’re fucking kidding me!”

Kaito slams his fist down hard onto the rail that separates him and Shuuichi. The rail doesn’t wobble a bit, but it leaves the outside of his hand red and aching to match his nails digging crescents into his palms.

It’s a fucking lie. It’s another fucking lie, like that time with Ryouma. That’s what it has to be- except this time, Kaito has no intention of sitting quiet and playing along. He’d never done it with Ouma, and he’s sure as hell not going to do it with Shuuichi. Not when he’s acting like this.

“Momota-kun!” Shirogane calls, a terrified lilt to her voice, “Please calm down!”

Well she doesn’t sound very fucking calm either, so Kaito think’s he’s allowed a little bit of yelling, thanks.

Shuuichi’s podium slides to the center. He doesn’t even look at Kaito as he passes. “I mean exactly what I said.”

From somewhere far away, Yumeno fiddles with the brim of her hat and struggles to take in the revelations of the last debate. “Nyeh… But when I checked with my magic, there was no other evidence…”

Kaito barely hears her. Any other time, he’d be sorry for it- but this trial is going too fast. Shuuichi’s making leaps of logic that leave the rest of them scrambling just to keep their heads above water, and Kaito hates it, plain and simple. He’s used to feeling toyed with- felt the anger of it over and over, since he woke up stuffed into a locker- but not by Shuuichi. Never by Shuuichi. “Then it was a suicide! Ouma got sick of that game of his and-”

“We’ve already discussed this,” Shuuichi replies, and there’s an edge of _something_ to his voice that Kaito doesn’t like. It sends a chill down his spine, uncontrollable as that pressure in his lungs and just as agitating. “The press comes down too fast for the same person to both activate and be crushed by it. This was a murder. Keebo can confirm.”

Kaito’s head swivels over to Keebo, who’s standing there frozen with such an expression of wide-eyed, reluctant horror on his face that on anyone else it would be a parody of itself. Keebo says, choosing his words very carefully, “Yes. After Saihara hit the button, it only took about ten seconds for the press to close completely. I was… almost… crushed…”

Fuck, fine. Then there’s another angle here; Kaito doesn’t have to wrack his brain long to find one. “Then he used some kinda tool! Iruma made him all sorts of shit, she could’ve-”

“And where’s the evidence of that?” Again, that tone to Shuuichi’s voice. Again, that out of place excitement that curdles whatever blood Kaito’s got left that isn’t already tainted with sickness. He doesn’t let it get the better of him; he can’t. Because this is what Shuuichi’s been doing the entire time, hasn’t it? Following every lead until its very end, until they’d chased down the one irrefutable truth. If Shuuichi has dropped the mantle, then he’ll take it up. That’s always been their understanding- or at least it was. Now, Kaito doesn't know what the hell he’s supposed to think.

“Crushed by the press!” Kaito fires back, “There was something mixed in with the blood! It was too coagulated to be just from being crushed.”

He’s seen enough of it in the past few days to know, if anyone asks. Not that he could explain that very easily. It’s a stroke of luck he doesn’t have to.

Shirogane fiddles nervously with her hands and points out, clearly reluctant to get between them- “But doesn’t that just help prove the murder theory..?”

“R- right!” says Yumeno, starting to get her footing in the conversation, “the murder woulda had to poison him to get Ouma to stay still!”

“I agree,” Shuuichi says, “That’s the only way-”

Kaito doesn’t let him finish. He’ll cut through all of Shuuichi’s meaningless retorts until whatever wall he’s been building has been torn down to nothing. “Yeah, so? Ouma drank the poison to override the safety function on the press! Wouldn’t stop for someone already dead.”

Shuuichi casts him a sidelong glance. It’s almost a glare. Like Kaito’s wasting his precious time, delaying… Kaito doesn’t want to think about that. Shuuichi’s prompt reply means he doesn’t have to. “And how would he have triggered the press if he was already dead?”

“It was on a timer!”

“There was no evidence of the control panel being tampered with.”

“There wouldn’t be if the function was already built in!”

“You’re contradicting yourself.”

“Yeah, well, why can’t we consider both options, huh?”

Maki stares between them, following their words as they string from one to the other, offering nothing but her silent judgement. The look in her eyes is something akin to disappointment- and that _hurts_ , Harumaki. But he knows what she’s thinking. They’d just made up, and here they are at each other’s throats again. But she’s gotta see.

Whoever they’re talking to- whoever’s arguments he’s desperately refuting right now- It’s not Shuuichi.

The Shuuichi he proudly calls his sidekick enjoying murder like a game ( _the game Monokuma keeps telling them it’s supposed to be)_ is as unthinkable as an Akamatsu who hated humanity, as a Luminary of the Stars who can’t believe in a single person besides himself.

Shuuichi shakes his head; his expression is full of casual disdain. Like he’s given up on the lot of them. “Momota-kun. You’ll never solve this case if you keep thinking like that.”

“Don’t be impatient,” Shirogane protests, still sounding flustered, “there are still things we haven’t fully explored, aren’t there? Like the Exisals!”

“It is strange,” Keebo chimes in, “why would Ouma have them protect Monokuma, and not himself?”

“Yeah-” Kaito rallies himself for another fight where he’s starting three steps behind- “There’s things the rest of us think are still important here.”

Shuuichi lets the comment slide as the rest of them debate. His podium moves back to its proper place at Kaito’s right side, and he’s got to fight that urge he’d gotten over and over again with Ouma- to charge over and deck him right in the face, to knock some sense into him the hard way.

He tramples it down, curls his fists at his sides, and calmly asks an unreceptive Harumaki for her account of stealing one of the Exisals, because that’s the lead he’s got to chase now.

He has to trust. He has to believe that there’s a reason for Shuuichi’s behavior that’s not what he’s been dreading with the same certainty that one way or another, he’s not going to see the end of this game. That his strange behavior today isn’t just the end of a long con worse than anything Ouma had ever pulled.

His friends are the only thing he can trust in this godforsaken prison of an academy. If he doesn’t have that, at the very end, then what does he have?

* * *

‘Saihara Shuuichi’ looks up at the voting results and smiles- and smiles and smiles and smiles.

The second he’d stepped onto that stage, a lifetime and three weeks ago, he’d met Shirogane’s eyes behind the cool lenses of her glasses and known. They were the same kind of people, him and her, the kind that loved _danganronpa_ more than their own selves.

_A life without danganronpa isn’t worth living_ \- those are the words Shirogane had spoken to him like a confession during his acceptance call. He’d held the phone with trembling hands and said, soft into the receiver, trying to keep his voice calm as a detective was expected to be- “I agree.”

He’d never agreed with something more in his life.

Still, he never has.

He huffs out an excited laugh as Monokuma speaks the damning words. He’s breathless. It’s _here_.

He all but leaps from his podium. The rest of them follow, stumbling their way down. He waits impatiently- some of them are still catching up from that final debate. Even when the closing argument had laid it out so clearly for them. Even when _he’d_ explained the gory details of the murder in his own words... Well, it won’t be his problem for much longer.

“How long?” Harukawa asks, finally breaking her near-silence of the trial. She speaks without emotion, the way she had after Ouma had revealed the ‘truth’ about her, before Momota had reached out.

“How long have I been lying?” he asks- audience clarification is important, after all. He accompanies it with a shrug. “A while.”

She bristles, and it’s only the fact that she’s supporting a half-sagging Momota, blood smeared across his lips, that keeps her from lunging for him. Momota coughs as he tries to speak, doesn’t clasp his hand over his mouth fast enough to avoid getting flecks of blood on Harukawa’s uniform. In reality, the blood blends dark and near-indistinguishable from the fabric. He wonders if they’ll bother coloring it pink, or if the drops are too small to take the effort to color. He kind of hopes for the former.

“You’re not, right?” Momota asks, with breath better saved for other things than meaningless pleas, “You’re not the mastermind, right?”

He doesn’t reply. The rest of the group shifts on tired feet and gaze uneasily amongst themselves. They already know the answer.

It’s all the conversation time they get. The rest of the revelations, those aren’t his to give.

He walks to his own execution. Unlike the rest, he has no intentions of fleeing the consequences of what he’s done, of shying away from the truth any longer. He chose this. With Momokuma companion at his side, he walks.

He knows the moment before it’s properly revealed to the captive audience- it’s the very same one he’d spent hours planning as he waited out the desperate promises of _“we’ll never kill anyone!”_ and “ _we’ll trust each other as friends!_ “ that start every season of _danganronpa_ , good only to watch the fallout as they’re inevitably broken. Shirogane’s made a few artistic embellishments, which he’d expected- and across the screen, of course, his blood will be unnatural pink- but the stage he’ll die on will be stained the red of their enclosed reality.

Monokuma seems oddly willing to let him savor the moment; he’d say he’d thank Shirogane for that later, but, well. Then he’d be a liar, wouldn’t he?

Instead he spares one last glance at his castmates left behind.

Yumeno trembles and trembles and trembles, and even Keebo’s steadying hand on her shoulder can’t do anything to help her shattered resolve, still so newly-formed. Behind her Keebo looks appropriately stoic- he’d been the one to finally say it, after all, when Momota had run out of words. _Then the culprit must be..._

All eyes had turned to him, just like they are now- blank-faced and horrified and betrayed. One gaze bores into him harsher than the rest. He already knows who it is. Harukawa stands stiff at Momota’s side, and he wonders if this might not be the thing that drives her to abandon all the trust she’s been striving for. As he watches, Momota sinks to his knees and looks like he’s finally hit the depths of despair. Just in time- it isn’t as if he’ll last much longer.

A little apart from them all, Shirogane is appropriately horrified- but only appropriately so. He’s sure that if she could, she’d be smiling, the same way she did down at her notes when he’d announced his intent with practiced nonchalance.

He turns his back. He has no more use for them, now.

“Thanks,” he says to Monokuma, thinking that Shirogane will hear it eventually. Well. Even if she doesn’t, she already knows.

“Oh?” Monokuma replies, drawing out the syllable until it’s almost a parody of intent, “Why would the guilty ever thank his executioner? Upupu… Unless he’s fallen into despair..?”

“No,” he says, perfectly pleasant, “that has nothing to do with it.”

This would be the point where Monokuma would blink, slow and disbelieving at him. Unfortunately, Monokuma’s not equipped with that kind of feature, and that mismatched, mechanical stare burns holes into his side instead. Monokuma makes a noise the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “Well, whatever.”

Monokuma doesn’t believe it. Shirogane probably won’t either- or maybe she will, he doesn’t know. After all, she’d been the one to tell him, in that call a lifetime ago- _“Most don’t announce their intents during the auditions. They try leaving coy hints, or make bold statements about ‘winning’... But that’s not the same. You understand, don’t you? Why intent is so important, in a killing game. In danganronpa. I’m right, aren’t I? ‘Saihara Shuuichi’… Ultimate Detective?”_

And he does. He always has.

You only audition for _danganronpa_ for one of two reasons- you want fame, or you want to be remembered. You want to win, or you want to die.

It has nothing to do with hope or despair.

It doesn’t matter if there are others that come after, mimicries of the first. He’ll always be the first, the most memorable, the most unexpected twist in the most controversial season- ‘Saihara Shuuichi’, the murderer-detective. The mastermind’s accomplice, without any of the gaudy trappings of twins and despair and the expectations of an audience desperate for hope.

Just a deal, a murder, and a perfect execution.  

 

He steps onto his stage.

 

The curtain comes down.

  


(The game plays on.)

**Author's Note:**

> this was really self-indulgent please don't think too hard about it ;; my only regret is i couldn't fit kaede in here somehow. also i love him but i'm never attempting to write ouma ever again rip


End file.
